Immigration and Welfare: A Tasty Mix
The issue of immigration is one of, if not the hottest issue going into the presidential elections next year. Since the time this became an issue a little over a year ago, those in favor of the bill and the bringing illegals into this country have been saying the entire time, “they work the jobs that Americans won’t.” Hmmm…that is an interesting claim and one that has been made by a few democratic presidential candidates. John Edwards believes that “hard working immigrants” should be allowed to become US citizens. Hillary Clinton has said, “…If we're going to let people in for the work that otherwise would not be done, let's have a system that keeps track of them.” Barak Obama is in favor of the current Immigration Bill, although wants a few amendments added to it. Although, if you didn’t do your own research and simply looked at Barack’s homepage, you would have no idea where he stands…
“Barack Obama believes the immigration issue has been exploited by politicians to divide the nation rather than find real solutions. This divisiveness has allowed the illegal immigration problem to worsen, with borders that are less secure than ever and an economy that depends on millions of workers living in the shadows.”
I thought that was cute. I mean, if taking a stand on something is defined as defining the problem, then Barack has a firm stance on the whole immigration issue which is comforting given the importance of the situation. Can we say, “pander?” Interesting too how Barack is currently a senator and is really just part of the problem. I guess if I ever run for president (which I won’t) then I can have my stance on gay marriage be…
“Tim Harrigan believes that gay marriage is when two people of the same sex decide that they want to get married and possibly adopt a child since the combination of their reproduction organs render them useless. Many people believe in gay marriage but also a lot of people don’t. Instead of arguing over it, politicians need to decide what to do about it, whether there should be a amendment to the constitution on it or if it should be a state issue.”
Anyways…I digress. I just thought it was funny. Luckily, I was able to do something Barack didn’t count on…look EVERYWHERE else for his stance and wala! Anyways, so on immigration we have decided to take the stance that because these people are essential to the economy and work jobs that Americans won’t and thus are getting done which effect the economy and things that we need everyday, such as food for example. Now, if that’s you’re opinion that’s fine and dandy and you’re entitled to it, just don’t expect me to be willing to give up a certain amount of my paycheck to fund some form of welfare program.
The same people who claim that there is a surplus of jobs because Americans won’t work them are the same people telling us that we need to support welfare because there are too many people without jobs! Unfortunately for people like you and I who see how these two ideas completely contradict one another, we are clearly either bigots because we don’t support ILLEGAL immigrants coming into our country ILLEGALLY and being given amnesty, or we’re greedy, money-grubbing poor-haters because we refuse to just hand out money to jobless people. So basically, we have two options…give illegals immigrants amnesty, who have come into this country illegally (i.e. against the law) and skipped in front of those who actually followed the law and basically piss on the law and send a great message out, or we can give people unearned money because they don’t feel like working certain jobs. It is ridiculous. And all the while we have the debate and absolutely nothing is done and the borders continue to be open (see Barack’s statement above).
The reason that these companies hire illegals is because they are allowed to pay them less than Americans. By paying them less prices go down and profits can rise…it’s simple economics and I’m a history major. So if these people are legalized, they are now part of the system and companies would be required to pay them minimum wage. Interesting that this bill isn’t passing, special interests? Anyways, so if these people would work these jobs that supposedly no one wants to work, they would be making at least minimum wage. For companies it’s a lose-lose either way, except for those who will continue to employ illegals, and given how the government has basically sucked at enforcing the actual law I don’t see that being an issue. There are various reasons why people don’t have jobs, I think most of them fall into a certain category but I don’t want to get into that because I don’t want to generalize poor people. But when you simply hand people money there is no incentive to work. These are people who haven’t worked in a long time, if ever, so how are we to expect that these people receiving money for doing NOTHING is somehow going to cause them to search for a job? Once again we’ve run into the whole “contradicting” problem. It’s amazing to me how obvious this is and how oblivious people seem to be about it.
Whenever I think of welfare I think of a Chinese proverb that says, “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime” and I think that nails the problem right on the head. Liberals love to take this issue (i.e. John Edwards) and build themselves up, act like they are fighting for some sort of problem and helping the world (also see: global warming). But wouldn’t you argue that by simply giving people money then you are hurting them? By giving someone money they have no incentive to work and won’t and thus don’t build up their job skills and remain in the same state they are in…but I guess since democrats are the ones in favor of giving them money then they are better people; which brings us to the next point. You see, the whole problem with that is that studies have been done showing that Republicans and religious individuals give far more to charities than democrats have sooo…yeeaaa (1). I think it boils down to this problem that Americans generally have; laziness. Ironically, we're one of the fattest countries in the world to the point where some call it an epidemic; and you can see this laziness in countless issues. Supposedly we're dealing with global warming, so instead of people walking, biking, or using public transportation, we simply invent new cars so people can still be lazy but reduce their emissions at the same time. Ironically, there was recently a report out that showed that the production of a hybrid car uses more energy than a hummer, and "you have to wait 60 months to save any money over a non-hybrid car because of lower gas expenses" (2). We have a problem with obesity and instead of people eating better and working out, we attempt to invent pills so that people can lose weight but continue to eat at McDonalds. And now we have the welfare problem and instead of actually trying to find a viable solution by teaching people how to get jobs and work related skills we simply throw money at the problem and solve nothing. This kind of thing has been done before though...remember the USSR? You know that country south of Florida which is poverty ridden? It’s called communism and for the most part it hasn’t really worked out…there’s a reason for that.
As for unemployment as a whole, I'll spare you another paragraph and give you a few links to show you the job Bush has done with them. Long story short, they are DOWN. Not to mention the stock market is setting records and the economy is doing great, but who cares...it's Bush.
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=23769
http://money.cnn.com/2006/11/03/news/economy/jobs_october/index.htm
1. http://www.philanthropy.com/free/articles/v19/i04/04001101.htm
2. http://clubs.ccsu.edu/Recorder/editorial/editorial_item.asp?NewsID=188
“Barack Obama believes the immigration issue has been exploited by politicians to divide the nation rather than find real solutions. This divisiveness has allowed the illegal immigration problem to worsen, with borders that are less secure than ever and an economy that depends on millions of workers living in the shadows.”
I thought that was cute. I mean, if taking a stand on something is defined as defining the problem, then Barack has a firm stance on the whole immigration issue which is comforting given the importance of the situation. Can we say, “pander?” Interesting too how Barack is currently a senator and is really just part of the problem. I guess if I ever run for president (which I won’t) then I can have my stance on gay marriage be…
“Tim Harrigan believes that gay marriage is when two people of the same sex decide that they want to get married and possibly adopt a child since the combination of their reproduction organs render them useless. Many people believe in gay marriage but also a lot of people don’t. Instead of arguing over it, politicians need to decide what to do about it, whether there should be a amendment to the constitution on it or if it should be a state issue.”
Anyways…I digress. I just thought it was funny. Luckily, I was able to do something Barack didn’t count on…look EVERYWHERE else for his stance and wala! Anyways, so on immigration we have decided to take the stance that because these people are essential to the economy and work jobs that Americans won’t and thus are getting done which effect the economy and things that we need everyday, such as food for example. Now, if that’s you’re opinion that’s fine and dandy and you’re entitled to it, just don’t expect me to be willing to give up a certain amount of my paycheck to fund some form of welfare program.
The same people who claim that there is a surplus of jobs because Americans won’t work them are the same people telling us that we need to support welfare because there are too many people without jobs! Unfortunately for people like you and I who see how these two ideas completely contradict one another, we are clearly either bigots because we don’t support ILLEGAL immigrants coming into our country ILLEGALLY and being given amnesty, or we’re greedy, money-grubbing poor-haters because we refuse to just hand out money to jobless people. So basically, we have two options…give illegals immigrants amnesty, who have come into this country illegally (i.e. against the law) and skipped in front of those who actually followed the law and basically piss on the law and send a great message out, or we can give people unearned money because they don’t feel like working certain jobs. It is ridiculous. And all the while we have the debate and absolutely nothing is done and the borders continue to be open (see Barack’s statement above).
The reason that these companies hire illegals is because they are allowed to pay them less than Americans. By paying them less prices go down and profits can rise…it’s simple economics and I’m a history major. So if these people are legalized, they are now part of the system and companies would be required to pay them minimum wage. Interesting that this bill isn’t passing, special interests? Anyways, so if these people would work these jobs that supposedly no one wants to work, they would be making at least minimum wage. For companies it’s a lose-lose either way, except for those who will continue to employ illegals, and given how the government has basically sucked at enforcing the actual law I don’t see that being an issue. There are various reasons why people don’t have jobs, I think most of them fall into a certain category but I don’t want to get into that because I don’t want to generalize poor people. But when you simply hand people money there is no incentive to work. These are people who haven’t worked in a long time, if ever, so how are we to expect that these people receiving money for doing NOTHING is somehow going to cause them to search for a job? Once again we’ve run into the whole “contradicting” problem. It’s amazing to me how obvious this is and how oblivious people seem to be about it.
Whenever I think of welfare I think of a Chinese proverb that says, “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime” and I think that nails the problem right on the head. Liberals love to take this issue (i.e. John Edwards) and build themselves up, act like they are fighting for some sort of problem and helping the world (also see: global warming). But wouldn’t you argue that by simply giving people money then you are hurting them? By giving someone money they have no incentive to work and won’t and thus don’t build up their job skills and remain in the same state they are in…but I guess since democrats are the ones in favor of giving them money then they are better people; which brings us to the next point. You see, the whole problem with that is that studies have been done showing that Republicans and religious individuals give far more to charities than democrats have sooo…yeeaaa (1). I think it boils down to this problem that Americans generally have; laziness. Ironically, we're one of the fattest countries in the world to the point where some call it an epidemic; and you can see this laziness in countless issues. Supposedly we're dealing with global warming, so instead of people walking, biking, or using public transportation, we simply invent new cars so people can still be lazy but reduce their emissions at the same time. Ironically, there was recently a report out that showed that the production of a hybrid car uses more energy than a hummer, and "you have to wait 60 months to save any money over a non-hybrid car because of lower gas expenses" (2). We have a problem with obesity and instead of people eating better and working out, we attempt to invent pills so that people can lose weight but continue to eat at McDonalds. And now we have the welfare problem and instead of actually trying to find a viable solution by teaching people how to get jobs and work related skills we simply throw money at the problem and solve nothing. This kind of thing has been done before though...remember the USSR? You know that country south of Florida which is poverty ridden? It’s called communism and for the most part it hasn’t really worked out…there’s a reason for that.
As for unemployment as a whole, I'll spare you another paragraph and give you a few links to show you the job Bush has done with them. Long story short, they are DOWN. Not to mention the stock market is setting records and the economy is doing great, but who cares...it's Bush.
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=23769
http://money.cnn.com/2006/11/03/news/economy/jobs_october/index.htm
1. http://www.philanthropy.com/free/articles/v19/i04/04001101.htm
2. http://clubs.ccsu.edu/Recorder/editorial/editorial_item.asp?NewsID=188